When the American quiz show Jeopardy airs Monday night, it marks the return of contestant Arthur Chu, who shot to fame after a four-game winning streak at the beginning of the month. Four wins is good for the show, but it’s Chu’s unusual style of play that has brought down the attention of a thousand fiery game show fans, many of whom have denounced him as “smug” or “evil,” arguing that he’s ruined a “gentleman’s game”.

Just as the Chu frenzy was getting going, though, Jeopardy took a two-week break from Chu to show a regularly scheduled Battle of the Decades tournament, a hiatus that only served to build up excitement for Monday’s return. And right now, only Chu and Jeopardy’s crew know how long the unorthodox champion held his throne. Ahead of Monday’s episode, we talked to former Jeopardy champions and Chu himself to get at the heart of what’s going on here – and how Chu feels about facing the heat of some very serious game show fans.

What is Jeopardy?

Chu, an insurance compliance analyst in Cleveland, Ohio, is an unlikely villain – except in the world of Jeopardy, where he’s earned $102,800 (so far) and does things like wager $5 on an answer he knows he doesn’t know. Chu hasn’t broken any rules , but nor been particularly emotive – besides small talk with host Alex Trebek; Chu’s main display of personality is an occasional chuckle, which could be self-deprecating or cocky or anything, really. In conversation with the Guardian, he was polite, pleasant and down-to-earth.

Chu uses strategies of ends over means, minimized risk and maximized advantage. Borrowing from economics, they’re calling it game theory. But why does it anger fans so much? For one, rather than follow each category top to bottom, as some contestants might naturally play, Chu jumps around the board, hunting Daily Doubles – clues that let players wager any amount. Chu has a couple things in mind with this: Daily Doubles are opportunities to make big gains and “control the flow of the game”; he keeps these chances out of opponents’ hands; and he keeps competitors off balance by switching categories.

What is the Forrest Bounce?

This searching is called “the Forrest Bounce” after Chuck Forrest, who used this strategy in 1985 – when Arthur Chu was riding a school bus to and from grade school. Both the record-holding champ Ken Jennings and IBM’s supercomputer Watson also used the Bounce, though Jennings didn’t employ it much during his famous 74-day run. In other words, it’s nothing new, though Chu says “the primary value of the Bounce is giving you an ‘edge’ when it comes to buzzer races, where a fraction of a second … makes the difference.”

A Chu game: he hunts around seemingly at random until he finds a Daily Double.

What is game (show) theory?

Chu’s unorthodox wagers are more important, and another borrowed idea. In Final Jeopardy, when players can again wager before seeing the clue, Chu has twice wagered to tie with the second place player, an idea he picked after Googling “Jeopardy strategies” before his appearance and landing on Keith Williams’ blog.

Williams argues that the only goal of Jeopardy is to come back the next day, as that’s the only way to turn the “dollars” you’ve earned into dollars in the bank. (Second and third place win $2,000 and $1,000 regardless of score.) Players can only bet as much as they have, so Williams sees “no difference on the upside” in going for the win. (He ignores the rather obvious upside of winning more money.) Betting more than your opponent can win puts you at more risk than necessary; rather than win by a dollar, you could lose by one. Similarly, should everyone get the question wrong, then the leader still wins by betting to tie.

Chu says he studied Williams’ strategies and memorized them as “a script”, so that when Final Jeopardy rolled around he’d know exactly what to play, just as a blackjack player can learn the “correct” plays for certain hands.

What are buzzer races?

Another former champion, Ben Bishop, told the Guardian that the risks of letting a tough opponent return could outweigh the benefits of a tie. Bishop, who won $115,000 on the show, said the buzzer system has tremendous influence on the game.

Players can’t buzz in until Trebek finishes each clue. As Trebek reads, a crewmember “arms” the board, which allows the players to buzz – buzzing too early will briefly lock a player out. (Bishop said he aimed for Trebek’s last syllable of each clue.)

But if a player can sync up their play with that crewmember, they have a significant advantage for the day. Chu, too, notes that Jeopardy “is not a ‘fair’ test … Jeopardy is a game of reflexes and psychology and momentum as much as it is a test of knowledge.”

A Jeopardy promo pokes fun at Chu’s reputation.

What is knowing yourself?

Bishop, who studied economics with a concentration in game theory, downplayed the importance of tactics, saying “the whole thing is game theory” in small ways. “Getting to know your brain a little better”, he said, was key, especially by keeping track of your own rate of success. He stressed knowing what you know, and how often you’re right – in other words, knowing your own patterns and working them into strategy. Not coincidentally, IBM’s Watson uses probability systems to gauge answers and past successes.

As far as the game’s patterns, some are more valuable than others, and both Bishop and Chu say studying the game, a la Jeopardy legend Roger Craig and via the “J Archive” website is perhaps the best thing to do: a category about opera will almost always feature the same 10-15 composers and singers; some categories (US presidents, world capitals, etc) are more common than others; “I got a clue in one of my games based on knowing that if Jeopardy says ‘Norwegian composer’ they mean Edvard Grieg,” said Chu. Another debated tactic is whether to go for your strong categories early or late, either to rack up a lead or to bet on big winnings later.

Bishop attributes success on Jeopardy largely to practice: Quiz Bowl. Bishop, Chu and three of the top five players of all time participated in Quiz Bowl, though Chu says he would credit “success way more to my focused 30 days of drilling down”.

What is Gladiator?

Game theory doesn’t win games on its own, and it can’t win over critics, either. In response to them, Chu has taken a line from the movie Gladiator: “Are you not entertained?” (His friend made it into a meme.) Plenty self-aware, he knows that Jeopardy is ultimately TV, and TV is performance, but he also knows that game shows make drama from putting everyday weirdness center stage. He was, after all, really trying to turn points into money out there, and outside the surreal confines of the show – which tells regular people to “act natural” on a TV set with Alex Trebek, while also telling them to go out and compete in front of 200 people – Chu is evidently a normal, likeable guy:

It’s entertaining because it’s real … the haters online are right to an extent. I’m just up there being a machine, playing the game. Mowing through the questions mechanically with this detached mien like a crazy person. That is not the most likable side of me. … We watch game shows and reality shows – or at least I watch game shows and reality shows – in the hopes of seeing something different than what we see all the time in scripted TV, something strange, something that reminds us that people are more diverse and complicated than our preconceptions allow.

Am I making too much of it? Perhaps. But … tons of people … are putting all this projected emotion onto me because of what I happen to represent to them – all because I was just a regular guy … responding to the incentives laid out for me. To me that’s TV magic, that’s ratings gold, that’s what everyone who creates game shows and reality shows should hope for”

Bishop suggested Chu consider another Gladiator quote: “I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd.” Ken Jennings certainly won the crowd and much that came with it, playing up his Ur-Nerd qualities – the charming Mormon Democrat from Seattle. Chu demurs, content to win the crowd in his own way and if they’ll take him as he is. With a burgeoning voiceover and acting career, he’s riding the wave to the best of his ability, keeping his hopes in check, knowing that fame, fans and haters are fickle, and enjoying the “crazy awesome ride”. He hasn’t hacked the rules, he’s just made them work in his favor.